This week's feature athlete is Julia Smay. She is a competitive strongwoman athlete and recently won the Phoenix Europa, punching her ticket to Nationals in LasVegas. **UPDATE** SHE WON! Congratulations Julia on winning Nationals! Julia is not only a strong athlete, but has a strong heart, character and a giving spirit. She coaches strongman athletes at El Jefe CrossFit in Glendale, Arizona. She credits Mike's coaching to give her the foundation to coach other athletes and get them into competition shape for both local competitions and to go to Nationals as well. <<<<<Check out her deadlift PR video.Thanks for stopping by! - Jolene Westerling

If you would like to talk to Julia about hiring her for strongman coaching at El Jefe, her Instagram is smayzee25

Thoughts from Coach Mike:

If you watch Julia set up for her deadlift you see that her position is just about perfect.

Right before she starts to exert upward force on the bar you can see:

Her shoulders are directly above the bar and her arms make a vertical line from her shoulders to the bar. A big mistake a lot of lifters make is beginning the pull with their body over the bar. From the side view you can tell the lifter is over the bar if their arms are at a forward angle.

She keeps her back flat and solid.

Her hips are in the position they would be for a half squat.

Her knees creep in between her arms but only slightly. This puts her hips as close as they can get to the line of pull while still keeping her weight behind the bar.

As you see her push her hips in towards the bar while keeping her weight back behind the bar you can see it bend as levers herself into the proper position.

As the bar travels up:

You can see the bar path moves in toward her body. This is because as she drives with her legs she is keeping her weight back behind the bar toward her heels. If her arms were angled forward instead of straight up and down the bar path would have been slightly forward and it would have likely stalled at the knees.

Her back angle relative to the floor stays the same until the bar reaches her knees. This is important as it transfers all the leg drive into the bar. A mistake here would be if she allowed her hips to raise faster than the bar. That’s not to be mistaken with the phrase getting the hips low. Lifters with less favorable leverage may have to start with their hips higher to achieve the correct position of power. However, even if the hips start high the back angle relative to the floor must stay the same as it is at the start to properly transfer the leg drive into the bar.

Once the bar passes the knees she drives her hips forward to finish the lockout.

The deadlift program I set up for Julia to pull this number was very simple:

Week 1 Deadlift Working up to a 5RM.

Week 2 Speed Snatch Grip Deadlift 5 sets of 3 reps with 50% of 1RM.

Week 3 Deadlift Working up to a 3RM.

Week 4 Speed Snatch Grip Deadlift 5 sets of 3 reps with 55% of 1RM.

Week 5 Deadlift Working up to a 2RM.

Week 6 Speed Snatch Grip Deadlift 5 sets of 3 reps with 60% of 1RM.

Week 7 Deadlift Working up to a 1RM.

The Snatch Grip Deadlift was performed with a wide grip and feet a little wider than the normal deadlift. We didn't use bands or chains and kept the percentage very light. The point of this was to get her to be more comfortable finding her perfect start position and getting used to exploding from that position. I kept her percentages light because we want full recovery for the main sets of conventional deadlifts on the opposite week. All sets of snatch grip are done double overhand and straps are allowed if needed.

Deadlift: For these we did 5 fairly evenly spaced, progressively heavier sets working up to a top set as specified in the weeks above. All workup sets were the same number of reps as the top set each time. For example: Set 1 135x5Set 2 195x5Set 3 255x5Set 4 315x5Set 5 375x5-The weight jumps are spaced this way so the athlete has ingrained the rep scheme in on the way up and programmed their mind for the top set. Bigger or smaller weight jumps can be made if the athlete is more comfortable either way, as long as the workup sets don’t fatigue the athlete and detract from the top working set.-Coach Mike

FEATURE ATHLETE

Every so often I will feature one of my athletes to showcase their accomplishments. The focus will be on reaching a PR, great form on an exercise or event training, a contest win, or any number of things that celebrate their personal strength and character. To go along with the video or photo, I will be discussing proper form, technique, recovery, avoiding overtraining and I might even include a training program to follow!